Movie review: 'Sacred Deer' is a twisted good time

Friday

Oct 27, 2017 at 6:30 AM

By Al Alexander/For The Patriot Ledger

You up for a darkly comic version of “Sophie’s Choice?” I didn’t think so. But don’t let that stop you from seeing Yorgos Lanthimos’ trippy, politically incorrect “The Killing of a Sacred Deer.” Love it or hate it – there’s intriguingly no in between – you’ll be transformed by what the writer-director dishes up – and dishes out – in a modern-day reimagining of the Greek myth of Iphigenia. Yes, there will be blood, not to mention curses, kinky sex and a dead kid or two. The faint of heart need not apply. The open-minded and adventurous? Come on in.

What you’ll find is two excellent performances by Colin Farrell and Nicole Kidman as wealthy doctors – Stephen’s a heart surgeon, Anna’s an ophthalmologist – seemingly living the buena vida in suburban Cincinnati with their two children, Bob (Sunny Suljic) and Kim (Raffey Cassidy). But beneath the artifice, trouble brews in the person of Martin (“Dunkirk’s” excellent Barry Keoghan), the 16-year-old son of one of Stephen’s deceased patients. He seems harmless enough, although he has a habit of showing up unannounced at Stephen’s office and being a bit too ingratiating.

Instinct tells us that Martin sees the doctor as a surrogate dad. And Stephen and his guilty conscience respond in kind by taking the kid out to dinner, buying him expensive watches and eventually bringing him home to meet Anna, Bob and Kim, with whom he sets off romantic sparks. But Lanthimos playfully plays with our growing suspicions of an underlying nefariousness (statutory rape, blackmail?) going on between Stephen and the boy with the menacingly sweet face. To say more would lead us deep into spoiler territory. Just know that no one is what they at first seem; and no one –except mop-topped Bob – is above suspicion.

With aplomb, Lanthimos carefully drops breadcrumbs for our increasingly curious minds to follow down a path of an ever-growing cloud of darkness and peril. If we happen to nervously laugh at these increasingly deadly machinations, all the better because Lanthimos and his co-writer Efthimos Filippo are all about social satire, much like Germany’s Michael Haneke (“Cache,” “The White Ribbon”), with whom Lanthimos shares a fascination with the lurid and surreal.

Down deep, “Deer” is very much a stoner movie for people who don’t get stoned. You can feel the contact high envelop you as you’re lured deeper into a bourgeois world thrown awry by a lonely teenager who mistakenly sees Stephen as God because of how the doctor’s oft-praised “beautiful hands” can determine who lives and who dies. But little does Stephen realize that his “power” is about to extend to his own family. If you know the legend of Iphigenia and the slaying of “the sacred deer,” you can easily figure out the rest. And it’s pretty neat how closely the film parallels the myth.

Be prepared, though, Lanthimos’ movie is extremely strange; stranger even than last year’s bizzaro “The Lobster,” which also starred Farrell. The first indication that things are oblique is the free-form dialogue delivered in a measured monotone cadence that’s almost robotic. Then there’s Stephen’s peculiar way of making love, having Anna lay limp on the bed pretending she’s under anesthesia while he pleasures himself. Oh, did I mention the family’s habit of telling all who cross their paths that 14-year-old Kim has just begun menstruating? I told you it was weird. And the funky sets by Jade Healy and the entrancing cinematography by Thimios Bakatakis only add to what amounts to a clever, evocative fever dream.

What it all means is wide open to interpretation, but it’s pretty clear that Lanthimos isn’t a fan of America’s upper class, which he sees as having it much too easy. But to what end are his criticisms? That’s never clear, and it keeps an engrossing movie from becoming an important one. Oh, but while it lasts, what a long, strange trip it is. It will either blow your mind or make you want to blow your brains out. Whichever side you come down on, you won’t soon forget what you just saw. And for a movie, that’s the ultimate compliment.